2 Detroit chefs make list of black chefs changing food in America

The New York Times included two Detroit chefs and one former Detroiter in its list of "16 black chefs changing food in America" published Tuesday.

Kiki Louya, co-owner of the brunch cafe Folk in Corktown, and Max Hardy, who runs River Bistro in Grandmont-Rosedale and the COOP stall in Midtown's Detroit Shipping Co. food hall, both made the paper of record's first-ever list of its kind.

Tunde Wey, a native of Nigeria who spent his early adulthood in Detroit and co-founded the pop-up restaurant Revolver in Hamtramck, also made the list. (Wey now resides in New Orleans but frequently brings his confrontational equity- and justice-centered dining experiences to the Motor City.)

Penned by the Times' national race correspondent John Eligon and food writer Julia Moskin, the feature calls attention to the racial inequities pervasive in the restaurant world.

"Diners often look past them when asking to compliment the chef," Eligon and Moskin write of the featured chefs. "Eyes still go wide when people see them cooking Mexican, Japanese or just about anything that’s not considered soul food. They still have to navigate the same racial politics as other black professionals."

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Hardy, whose River Bistro restaurant made the Free Press' annual Best New Restaurants list in 2018, told the Times he was influenced in part by growing up in Detroit. He moved to Florida as a teenager, but came back to his hometown in 2017 at least in part to give black chefs in Detroit more visibility. 

"Growing up in Detroit, you didn’t see chefs and restaurants elevated like that," Hardy told the Times. "It was Motor City, not Food City. Now I can invent a dinner based on the recipes of Hercules, a slave who was George Washington’s personal chef, and I can have my restaurant, and I can teach kids in the community."

Louya has been in the news quite a bit lately. Folk made the Freep's most recent Best New Restaurant list and Food & Wine's inaugural list of best restaurants to work for. In May, Louya and business partner Rohani Foulkes announced they'd be joining forces with Ping Ho and Sarah Welch of Marrow on a new joint venture that will elevate Folk's presence and expand their Farmer's Hand grocery store.

Folk has garnered much attention for eschewing gratuity and instituting a flat service charge in its place. The cafe also pays its staff a living wage.

Wey has been covered previously by the Free Press for his various pop-up dinner discussions centered on blackness, immigration and the racial wealth gap.

"Food has politics," he told the Times. "It doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed. But it can’t be separated into a rarefied medium that transcends everything else.”

Send your dining tips to Free Press Restaurant Critic Mark Kurlyandchik at 313-222-5026 ormkurlyandc@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @MKurlyandchik and Instagram @curlyhandshake. Read more restaurant news and reviews and sign up for our Food and Dining newsletter.